


let me sleep (let me breathe)

by ElasticElla



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character(s) of Color, Dream Sex, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:06:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25267333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/pseuds/ElasticElla
Summary: The dreams are different.
Relationships: Nile Freeman/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	let me sleep (let me breathe)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ba_lailah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ba_lailah/gifts).



1.

She’s drowning. Irony and blood are thick on her tongue, can taste her own name. Her throat aches, and there’s pain everywhere, knives everywhere. 

Nile keeps thinking she’s waking, wakes up again in the coffin filled with water. Drowns again and again and again. It feels like it will never end, rage brewing in her chest. 

She doesn’t belong here. This isn’t – 

(Nile wakes up for real, salt water in her mouth. Only remembers the pain, the hatred.) 

2.

She’s drowning again. 

Nile knows it isn’t real, knows she’s sleeping soundly in Afghanistan. But adrenaline still flows through her as she fake-wakes in the underwater coffin. 

Over and over and over, anger building with every death. Reaches a crescendo as the coffin starts to move. Another death, and she isn’t drowning. 

The cold sets in fast with the heavy soaked rags she wears, a chilly wind cutting across her face. The knives, no spikes, are back and feel deeper, more painful.

It matters not. Breathing has never felt so sweet, so easy – 

(Nile wakes with a gasp, gets a dirty look from her once-friends, the most attention they’ve given her since the incident.) 

3.

She’s on land with a beautiful woman. Nile’s dressed in her civvies and somehow it’s weirder than all the drowning before. Somehow she’d gotten used to it. 

The woman smiles at her, “I am Quynh. What do they call you?” 

“Nile.” 

She barks out a laugh, “I will never escape the waters. You are like me, an immortal.” 

Nervous words bubble past her lips, “That’s impossible. You’re not – you’re not real, none of this is. I’m dreaming. This is – this is a dream.” 

She cocks her head to the side, hair falling forward. “Did your throat not get slashed open? Did you not trade death blows with a man?” 

Nile closes her eyes, it’s just her subconscious being weird. Really fucking weird, since usually she doesn’t have this level of awareness in dreams. Probably won’t remember any of this upon waking anyways. So it doesn’t – 

“Tell me where you are. I will come for you, save you and prove it to be true.” 

“Not real, it’s not real,” she mutters, goes to grab her cross, and her fingers brush against her dog tags instead. 

“If it isn’t real –”

(When she wakes, Nile can still see the beautiful woman’s face. A chill drips down her spine, it’s only a nightmare. Probably a woman she saw back home in passing. Or made up.)

4.

The woman is kissing down her neck, nimble fingers removing her uniform efficiently. 

It isn’t real, she repeats to herself. It isn’t real, it’s okay. 

She reaches out to touch her, amazing the woman doesn’t dissolve to nothingness. This isn’t an old nightmare, she didn’t kill her. (Right?) 

She feels impossible beneath her fingers, awe in her gaze. There isn’t a single blemish on her, beauty becoming something more. 

The name comes back to her slow, honey on her tongue, “Quynh.” 

Quynh smiles down at her, “Good. You’re learning.”

“A treat,” she adds, and Quynh’s hand is between her thighs, fingers brushing over her pussy. Nile gasps, and the fingers press in, Quynh’s eyes never leaving hers. The intensity makes her squirm, makes her clench and moan. It’s been so long, and her slender fingers fit perfectly. 

“My wet little river,” Quynh murmurs, fingers fucking her faster until bliss overtakes everything, vision fading to black. 

(She awakes with wet thighs and a name bouncing around her head: Quynh.) 

5.

Quynh knows the moment she looks at her. 

“You believe.” 

She swallows, looking around the eerily real seeming meadow they’re in. “You’ll come for me? They’re uh, they’re shipping me out for more testing.” 

A ferocity sweeps over Quynh’s features, and she gently cups her face. “I won’t let them do that to you.” 

“Do what?” 

“You know,” she says, adds anyways, “I won’t let them take you apart or lock you away. Not like me.” 

“The drowning,” Nile murmurs, the previous dreams clicking into place. 

“Tell me where you are,” Quynh says and Nile does. 

(There’s hope in her breast when she wakes, a most dangerous thing.) 

+1. 

Nile has never been the damsel in distress type. Couldn’t afford it as a little black girl growing up on the south side. Her mother taught her most things, her late father one heavy, bitter lesson: as much as you can, rely on yourself. 

Bags in hand, heading to the plane, she feels like a damn damsel. Walking right to her doom, not even fighting it. What an excellent sheep she’s grown up to be. 

What if she’s wrong? What if they’re only dreams, an overactive imagination? She can’t go AWOL or shoot her way out for nothing. Her mom, oh lord, what her mother will think. 

At the foot of the plane, she trembles and an officer she doesn’t recognize says, “Your weapon Corporal?” 

Instinct has her handing it over too quick, without any fuss, and the panic is back in her throat, thick enough to choke on. 

There’s relief in his eyes and _fuck_ – 

The back of her neck prickles, a blade slicing out of no where, the officer’s head clean off. The body crumples with a spray of blood. She turns, and Quynh is there in all her glory, slicing through all the surrounding personnel. 

The last one falls with a wet gurgle, bile threatening to rise, and Quynh’s grin is wild. “Ready to go Nile?” 

“What’s going on?” 

She sighs, sheathing the sword. “You have questions, naturally. I’ll explain on the flight, we can’t stay here.” 

There isn’t a choice. Not with Quynh in front of her, in the flesh, and heat creeps up her spine at the thought: she’s tangible. Not with the bodies scattered around, she knows, _knew_ , a few of them. The others already don’t trust her, if she returned now – 

Nile drops her dog tags in a bloody puddle, follows Quynh onto the plane. 

(Quynh curled around her, both sated, her dreams are blissfully empty.)


End file.
